This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
The manufacture of bevel gears, such as straight bevel gears, helical bevel gears, spiral bevel gears and hypoid gears typically requires numerous gauges to ensure that the bevel gear has been manufactured to a desired degree of accuracy. Typically, various types of hard gauges would be fabricated for the gauging of a bevel gear. The hard gauging would typically include “go” and “no-go” gauges, which are used to check whether a certain feature is within tolerance (i.e., “go”) or outside of the tolerance (i.e., “no-go”), and other gauges that may need to be “mastered” (i.e., calibrated based on a known dimension that is found on a “master”). These other gauges may utilize dial indicators or pressurized air (i.e., an air gauge) to measure or quantify deviations from the dimension on the “master”.
Because such hard gauging is typically specific to a given bevel gear configuration, one drawback associated with such an extensive use of hard gauging concerns the cost for designing, fabricating and certifying or qualifying the hard gauging. In this regard, the costs for acquiring and certifying/qualifying hard gauging for a given bevel gear configuration, which can be significant, are typically incorporated into the pricing for a specific bevel gear configuration. Moreover, the lead-time for designing, fabricating and certifying/qualifying the hard gauging can likewise be significant.